built-to-spill

JD Simo joins us in discussing the albums we spun the most during the height of the pandemic. Plus, current musical obsessions!

What was your go-to album during quarantine?

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Check out the instruments used by members of Queens of the Stone Age, Jawbreaker, Bad Brains, Prophets of Rage, New Order, Built to Spill, and others who rocked the Chicago fest.

A Day to Remember’s Joshua Woodard

The keeper of low for the metalcore-meets-pop punkers relied mostly on his Music Man StingRay Classic for the band’s Friday headlining set including the opener “All I Want.”

Doug Martsch had the tone control and pickup selector removed from his Strat Plus. “The in-between settings were completely useless to me,” he says.
Photo by Rene Gomez

The first album in six years from Idaho’s greatest export since the potato.

Most guitarists profiled here are afflicted with some form of G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome). They secure an instrument and then immediately set sights on their next purchase. But Built to Spill frontman Doug Martsch displays no signs of the disease.

Martsch has played the same guitar—a Fender Strat Plus—for more than 20 years. Furthermore, its electronics were modified long ago for only a single pickup setting and a volume control. Yet Martsch achieves great sonic diversity despite this “limitation.”

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